Inmate Botches Jailbreak Attempt

A prisoner bungled a far-fetched jailbreak scheme when torn-up sheets he lowered in hopes of hoisting a gun from the street below never made it anywhere close to the ground.

Dwayne Brown, whose cell was on the 18th floor of the Middlesex County Courthouse, allegedly tried to drop the line to his girlfriend and a helper, planning to haul back up a 22-caliber handgun.

But it got stuck after being lowered just four floors from Brown’s tiny louvered jail cell window. And police, who knew about the plan a week ahead of time, were watching anyway.

“It would be funny, but when you think about a loaded handgun going to an inmate …,” said Brian Heffron, Middlesex County district attorney spokesman. “It’s like The ‘Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.”’ Alerted by routine jailhouse telephone call monitoring, police who observed the escape attempt unfold late Thursday arrested Colleen Meurer and Charles Adams Jr., who were charged with weapons violations and assisting an attempted jailbreak.

Brown, 24, who was awaiting trial for alleged assault and battery, was charged with attempting to escape. Meurer and Brown lived together before his arrest. Heffron described Adams as a “hired hand.”

Prosecutors said in court that Brown planned to use the gun to break out of the jail. But they said Meurer told them that he also had a plot to kill a judge.